More than This

(Fiction) He looked into the woman’s dark blue eye, almost purple, and saw it a geometric sparkle.

More than a hum, more than birdsong, more than the endless dying. So close, its frequencies dampened by the soft cloak of skin Simon wore over flesh, flesh over bone. How strange to have a body at all, Simon thought as he counted change for a customer at the register. She leaned against the counter, impatient. Sighed. Looked around as if she had not made a choice to shop, to pay in cash, to wait. With every one of her exasperated eye blinks Simon slowed his movements, relaxed his shoulders, stood up straight, moved as if swimming, swam as if in silk. “Out of ten,” he said and began to count back the pennies. “That’s four thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, and forty.” The woman shifted her weight as she fixated on her outstretched palm. “Four fifty, four seventy-five, and five dollars,” he said. The woman cleared her throat as Simon smoothed the bills with his fingers before the grand finale, “and here is six, seven, eight, nine, and one more makes ten.”

Simon flashed his glinting teeth in a smile. This part of the performance was not exclusively for her. He did the bit for every customer who came into the shop, no matter how he was treated. His smile was made of the light he had been collecting for years. In any place he looked for it, it was there. It was even here, on the sparkle of the impatient woman’s gold lemon flower brooch. “That is a beautiful piece,” Simon said.

“My husband gave this to me years ago,” she placed a wrinkled hand on the pin. “He passed away last week.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said Simon as he tore a receipt from the printer and handed it to the woman, who opened her black leather purse and began filing the receipt into what appeared to be a complex system.

“Well, I was taking care of him for a long time,” she said. “He’s at peace now.”

And so are you, thought Simon, though he knew better than to speak aloud her own hidden truth. He looked into the woman’s dark blue eye, almost purple, and saw in it a geometric sparkle.

“You look like him, when he was young.” The woman’s gaze melted over him, stimulated goose pimples, raised the hair on Simon’s arm. “How old are you?” she asked.

“Thirty-six.”

“Well, what are you working here for?”

The chaotic ring of beating wings filled the room.

“Oh!” cried the woman, as a finch passed by her head and landed on the windowsill.

Simon smiled and waited for the woman to continue her inquiry.

“Won’t you do anything about that bird?” asked the woman.

“He’ll find his way out when he’s ready.”

“Alright, well—” the woman straightened her cardigan. “By the time I was thirty-six I was married, had three children, and owned a home. Don’t you have a wife to support?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Don’t you have a college degree? Why don’t you get a real job?” A customer approached the register pushing a cart full of bulky items, holding a baby, who grasped at her face and hair relentlessly as she frowned.

“Pardon me,” said Simon to the old woman. Then said to the mother, “Let me get that for you,” and relieved her of the cart and began loading her groceries onto the counter for her.

“Thank you so much,” the mother said as she turned her attention fully toward her child and redirected the pummeling.

The old woman lingered. “You should want more than this,” she said to Simon, then pulled a business card from her purse. “Call me,” she said. “I have work for you, if you want it.”

Simon sat on the twin mattress in his bedroom, his phone in one hand and the woman’s business card in the other. He looked at the floor, then to the chipped paint on the wall, then to the water damaged ceiling. A train approached and went by, its hustle a cacophony he now considered music. Overplayed. He woke to it, fell asleep to it, and even made love by it when he was lucky, and he was often lucky. But no one ever stayed. Maybe it was him, maybe it was cramped quarters. Most likely it was the train. So he called the woman, took the job, and got to work straight away scanning and cataloguing the immense collection of rare books and ephemera her husband had left behind.

Weeks went by. There was so much work he no longer had time to work at the grocery store, and though he missed his coworkers and customers there was magic in these dead old things. Love letters between authors, diary entries, rare first editions of literature, tickets to vaudeville shows, signed portraits of actresses, gold necklaces, gold picture frames, gold rings. It was a shame to sell these invaluable mementos, left behind not once but twice—at least twice. Once by the husband and at least once by previous owners. How many times had this love letter changed hands?

Dearest Hugo,

I think of you more than I should, and I shouldn’t think of you. Our correspondence is beginning to distract me, not only from my duties as a wife, but from my own passions. I haven’t touched my harp in weeks, nor have I been writing poetry. I have been wandering the paths by the river and gazing into my own reflection in the stream, wishing it was you. It has been so long since I’ve seen your face, I’ve almost forgotten what you look like. If you respond to this, and you are under no obligation to respond, please include a recent photo? I would like to put it in my heart locket, though it’s running out of room. There is space for four small photos. One is occupied by my husband, one by my sister, and one contains a photo of the milkman. I hope you don’t mind me telling you this, but he and I had quite the summer fling before my husband struck his face with a milk bottle. The bottle was full and when it shattered the milk mixed with his blood and turned pink and stained his uniform. His face has not looked the same since and he will no longer deliver to our address, so I keep his picture in the locket to remember how beautiful he once was. Anyway, I have only one slot left in the locket and I’m saving it for you, Hugo. I read your recent article in the newspaper about show dogs, and it was beautiful the way you described the sheen of their fur and explained the science of inbreeding and why dogs who are particularly stunning live particularly short lives. Where do you get the ideas for your writings, Hugo? I hope it’s from me. Please do respond if you get the chance. I save all your letters, though I must hide them from my husband otherwise he may come after you even though I lied and told him you are harmless. You aren’t harmless, are you? I hope not. I would love for you to take me as a man does a woman, though I do fear my husband.

Love eternal,

Ethel

P.S. If ever you are in Wellsville do stop by. My husband is nearly always working and when he comes home, he is too drunk to see. I am very much alone and would love your company.

P.P.S. If we ever do act on our forbidden passions, I promise never to send you a baby in the mail. I am, woefully, barren.

P.P.P. S. I wish I never had to stop writing to you, but I must put this in the mailbox before the mailman arrives. He is quite the flirt but I have no room left in the heart locket and so must hide.

Simon assessed the item and priced it at four dollars and thirty-six cents, then entered the information into a spreadsheet on the desktop computer in the office. He looked out the window and blew air through his pursed lips, sputtered. I am very much alone, he thought.

A knock on the door.

“I’ve got cookies!” The old woman pushed her way into the room. “Lemon-lavender-rosemary-shortbread. They were Irvin’s favorite.”

Simon was not particularly fond of lemon, lavender, or rosemary but he took a cookie from the tray none-the-less and took a bite. “Yum,” he said, but his soggy intonation gave away his displeasure.

“What’s wrong, Simon?” The woman put the tray on the desk, then put her fingers to Simon’s brow and swept his hair to one side.

“Please, stop that.”

She pulled her hand away and placed a fist on her hip. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Wait,” said Simon. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did your husband collect all these things?”

“Somehow, he got the idea that buying all this junk would be a better investment than putting our money in the stock market. I thought it was a waste. He turned out to be right, of course. My husband was a smart man. But we’ve done so well for ourselves it wouldn’t have mattered either way.”

“Then why sell it now?”

“I suppose I want to make good on his investment.”

“Yes, but this is a great deal of work. Why not donate these things to a museum? You’re paying quite a lot of money to catalogue and list these items. Won’t the profit be marginal at best?”

“Aren’t you happy to have respectable work that pays well?”

Simon looked out the window. Geese passed over the rolling hillside in a flying v. Wind rocked the crop of eucalyptus on a distant hill. A woman pushed a stroller up it and paused on the overlook to gaze at the distant sea. She picked up her baby and sat down on a boulder, thumbed at her blouse to unbutton it, and put the baby on her breast to drink.

“I’m not ungrateful if that’s what you’re asking, but I miss the grocery store. I miss my conversations with Perry, the owner. I miss smiling at Roger. It seems he only smiles when I smile at him, and I hope someone is at least trying. I hope the cereal is put back properly on the shelf. I hope someone is helping the young mothers load their groceries onto the conveyor belt.”

“Many of those young mothers are already married, you do know that right?”

“That doesn’t matter to me.”

“Well it certainly should!”

“No, I mean—” Simon peered slantwise at the old woman. “I’m gay.”

The old woman raised her eyebrows at him and said, “Very good, I’ll let you get back to work.” She shut the door behind her, then opened it again. “Oh, and Simon, would you like something to drink?”

“No that’s fine.”

“Are you sure you don’t want some coffee, or lemonade? My neighbor Doris gave me a bunch of lemons from her tree yesterday, so I juiced them all and now have a whole pitcher of lemonade in the fridge so if you’d like any just help yourself.”

“No, thanks,” Simon said.

“Okay, very good,” said the old woman, and when she left the sound of the click echoed in the empty corners of the large white room and again Simon was alone.

That night Simon dreamt of ephemera, drifting from the sky like snowflakes. He opened his mouth to taste the pages and as they hit his tongue turned pink as cow’s milk mixed with blood. It poured from his mouth. A waterfall of pink letters pooled into the basin and emerged as black and white images, inked portraiture, faces blank as if severely dodged, white bursts spreading to the edges. The cluttered white room. Uncluttered. Cookies on the floor. The old woman’s face kissing him. Liver spotted hands around his neck. His own swollen tongue in his mouth. You are more than this. Listen. The finch’s fluttering wings. More than this. Freight train. The stacked harmonics sing. More than this.

The silver bell on the counter chimed. Simon rose from kneeling, dumped the contents of his dustpan in the trash, and emerged above the counter. “Sorry, could you help?” said a young mother who had a child’s fist in her eye, her right hand prying it away, her left hand on the cart.

“Of course!” Simon sanitized his hands, then took the cart from her and began loading her items onto the counter.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” said the mother.

Simon finished scanning and bagging, then ripped a sticker from the roll and handed it to the toddler, who stopped pummeling his mother and giggled. “So am I,” said Simon.

Thanks for reading!